Reporting from Boston — When a team is being blown out, as the Vancouver Canucks were in an 8-1 loss to the Boston Bruins on Monday in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals, the losing coach often replaces his starting goalie to spare him further indignity. Vancouver Coach Alain Vigneault made that offer to Roberto Luongo after Boston's Daniel Paille scored a short-handed goal at 11:38 of the third period. "Alain asked me when there was about eight minutes left. I said I wanted to stay in," Luongo said Tuesday.

Reporting from Vancouver -- Kings defenseman Willie Mitchell once played with Vancouver's Daniel Sedin and considers the Canucks star forward to be a good friend. Yet that didn't prevent him from holding back when asked about the five-game suspension handed out to Chicago's Duncan Keith last week after he elbowed Sedin in the head. Sedin is out indefinitely with a concussion and the Canucks took the step of confirming that fact, not something always done in the NHL. When Mitchell was playing for the Canucks, his hockey career was threatened and future clouded when he suffered a concussion and had months of lingering symptoms.

Reporting from Vancouver, Canada -- Thoughts and notes on the 7-2 blowout by the Canucks that put the Kings on the verge of playoff elimination entering Game 6, Sunday at 6 p.m. at Staples Center. ... The Canucks' performance Friday at GM Place was by far their most complete and completely convincing of the series. Most obvious is that winger Mikael Samuelsson continued his King-killing ways with two goals and an assist to run his total to seven goals and nine points in five games, Daniel Sedin had a goal and an assist and Henrik Sedin had two assists.

Success can be relative and the Kings have had success against two relatives in building a 2-1 series lead over the Vancouver Canucks. Center Henrik Sedin , the NHL scoring champion, and his identical twin Daniel have had their moments but have not been dominant. Daniel has two goals and three points and Henrik has three assists; the other winger, Alex Burrows , has been shut out. In splitting the first two games at Vancouver the Kings used Drew Doughty and Rob Scuderi as a shutdown defense pair against the Sedin line.

The playoff series between the eighth-seeded Kings and top-seeded Vancouver Canucks hasn't started, but both teams were in full playoff gamesmanship mode Monday. Shortly after Kings forward Jeff Carter said his bruised ankle felt good and he expects to play Wednesday at Vancouver "for sure," Coach Darryl Sutter sounded less positive about Carter's imminent return. Maybe Carter isn't ready, though center Mike Richards said Carter "could have played the last couple games if we needed him to, the last game for sure.

From Boston The Stanley Cup finals again boomeranged from one coast to the other and one extreme to the other, returning to Vancouver for a seventh-game finale Wednesday that might make this series memorable for reasons better than the biting, taunting and smarmy hits by both teams. A record-setting early barrage by the Boston Bruins in a 5-2 victory Monday chased Canucks goaltender Roberto Luongo to the bench and put the Cup back in its packing case. The Bruins have never played a Game 7 in the Cup finals; the Canucks have never won the Cup. They reached this climactic moment after the Bruins made it six straight wins for the home team and outscored the Canucks, 17-3, in three games at TD Garden.

Forwards Vancouver's Daniel Sedin followed the lead of twin brother, Henrik, by winning the NHL scoring title this season. Then there's Ryan Kesler, who tied Daniel for the team lead with 41 goals during the regular season and has 18 points in 18 playoff games. Throw in gritty Alex Burrows and role players such as Chris Higgins and Maxim Lapierre and it's an impressive group. Center Manny Malhotra's possible return from a serious eye injury would provide an emotional lift. Boston has a good amount of punch and speed, starting with the line of Milan Lucic, David Krejci (10 goals)

Yesterday, in fact, has not seemed so far away. Not for victory-starved Kings fans, who savored long ago playoff success from 1993, pulling it out for close examination, and, well, reassurance during the lost years. The Kings have won one playoff round, in 2001, since that famous run to the Stanley Cup Finals by Wayne Gretzky and friends. They pulled within one game of doubling that total with Sunday's 1-0 victory against the Canucks at Staples Center, taking a 3-0 series lead against the league's best team.

Through Sunday's games: RK. TEAM Comment (Last week's ranking) 1 San Jose 14-4-4 Sharks are 9-0-3 since last regulation loss. Nice, but let's see them do that in April, May and June. (1) 2 New Jersey 14-5-0 Devils lost at Philadelphia and nine-game road winning streak. (4) 3 Washington 12-4-4 Alexander Ovechkin (shoulder strain) is expected back soon. Mike Knuble (broken finger) will miss two weeks.